Our Original Identity (demonic narratives, fantasy, & inner conflict) w/Jamie Winship

People say, "We take the Bible literally." No, you don't. You do not. Because if you take it literally, you'd be living a whole different life. We don't know how to say about ourselves what Jesus himself would say about you right now. If he stood up and I said, "Introduce that person," what he would say about you would make you get on your knees and cry at his high view of you.

I had a lot of experiences with the spirit of God in police work, but I've never had him talk to me this loud. I thought it was a person behind me. He said, "What do you do?" "I live in other countries and I write books." Then he said, "What are you doing here then? I didn't invite you to live here. Your pastor asked you to stay here. He is not me."

I had this idea. What would happen if we took five militant Muslim guys from the West Bank to the men's retreat in Texas? We wanted the Saul of Tarsus types. Hassan, the 13 times in prison. He stands up and he's got his hand up like this. He walks all the way up onto the stage and he says, "Last night Jesus came to our bunk house." And all the Christian guys were like, "He did."

One night we're sitting and drinking tea with the imams. He said, "Why are you setting four place settings when there's only three of us?" And the guy goes, "For your security guy, doesn't he? He's always standing outside your tent." "What? Our security?" And the imam says, "Oh my gosh, you can't see him, can you?" But we've been dying to ask you about why does your security guy have a sword? And we were like, "Our security guy has a sword."

Hey guys, it's Jake. If you haven't already noticed, uh, we filmed this episode live in person at one of our events. Uh, this was last week in Nashville, which was so much fun and it was great to actually just get to meet you guys in person. But in this episode, we have Jamie Winship, who just has the unique ability to make you cry one moment and then just laugh the next. Um, so I think you're going to love it. But, um, if you want to come to any of these events in the future, just stay tuned and, uh, we'll keep you guys posted on what's coming next. But anyways, without further ado, enjoy the show.

>> Everyone wants to get to the high places, but if you want to go high, you first have to go deep.

>> What's up? Welcome back to the deep end. We have Jamie Winship back with us. This is number four. Do you know how to say four in Spanish?

>> No.

>> Quattro.

>> Thank you.

>> You're welcome. This is

>> I knew it'd be worth my time.

>> Numero guatro with Jamie. Jamie Winship has decades of experience bringing peaceful solutions to some of the world's highest conflict areas. After a distinguished career in law enforcement in the metro Washington DC area, you earned an M.S. in English and developed a unique process for solving inner conflict and the results are pretty crazy. We're going to get into some of those today. Uh, your methods are quite unconventional if you layer them onto the normal conflict resolution stuff. Um, but you've worked with leaders in professional sports. Um, you've done race, racial reconciliation, business, education, law enforcement, government, nonprofit. You and your wife Don are co-founders of the Identity Exchange, which is what exactly?

>> That's um our company that deals with identity exchange. That's what we do. We deal with um all conflict really comes from a false identity within humans. And once you deal with the false identity and exchange it for what's true, then you can move towards peace. And that's what we work on all the time.

>> Amazing. Okay, here's my first question for you. Um, if I've studied you quite a bit, um, if somebody were copying your life exactly without the ability to hear from God, they would physically die. So, uh, how do you distinguish faith from delusion? Because some of the things

>> I don't I don't know if I figured that one out yet. Um, the so, so I mean, basically faith is the substance of things you hope for. Delusion, delusion is not that. It's a difference between imagination and fantasy. I think imagination in scripture is is the intuitive mind. It's the person who, who whose eyes are fixed on God. Their mind and imagination is fixed on God. They're fixed on the unseen real. Fantasy is fixing your mind on the unseen. False and fantasy leads to secrecy, shame, and delusion. Imagination, um, leads to focusing on the truth of who you are, the truth of who God is, and it and leading to the the future of seeing the unseen real before it's actually present. And so that's that's really what a person, what gives a person hope is the unseen real. The unseen false creates fear and um, stagnation, all kinds of things, coping mechanisms. So, that's how I can tell the difference. If it's delusional, it actually creates fear within me. Um, if it's if it's hopeful, if it's a God invitation, it creates in me a kind of, uh, like an awe, like, "Wow, is that possible? That's probably not even possible, but what if we could do it?" And it gives me a kind of joy and energy to go forward. That's they're they're really quite distinct. Faith and delusion are very distinct.

>> Are you are you counterprocessing the the way you feel in your body or is it an intellectual exercise for you?

>> It's the whole, I think I love what he said in the opening, um, "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength." Your whole, your whole being. It can't be disconnected. It's the whole thing. And where if I say to people, "Where do you feel?" is the key to healing, as they say, "So what do you feel?" And if your feelings are shut down, you're in danger, I think. So it's the whole, the whole person. Like Hebraic thinkers could never separate sort of the Cartesian split where you separate the mind from the body, which was deadly. And but the Hebraic idea is that you can't, there's nothing that you can say that can't be seen, felt, smelled, touched. It can't be separate from the whole person. And we live a life of abstraction. So we have faith, but it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't look like anything. We can talk about these concepts with no real physical involvement in them, and we live our whole life that way. And it's, I mean, it's ultimately frustrating and feudal, I think.

>> Yeah. It sucks from experience.

>> That's right. What when when

>> No one's born with this idea though of of faith, or we were kind of programmed with fear? It's one of the primal

>> right

>> drivers. So was when you were learning about this, did you always just have the voice of God teaching you things? I mean, I I would have called it imagination, and I didn't understand it obviously growing up, but but as I look back and and if if you're raising kids, you'll notice this, um, how much the child lives in their imagination and in the intuitive, in the mythical world, how beautiful that is. And that's slowly going to get stomped out of them, like, "Pay attention. Here we are. You need to focus on this right now." happens. But when I was young, um, like I would I I was talking about this yesterday with my wife. I would set up army men when I was little and my brother, older brother, he we would set up these two teams of little plastic soldiers and all he wanted to do was like throw firecrackers and blow them all up and shoot them with rubber bands. But my team was organizing into groups and we were making friends with each other and we were trying to figure out how not to fight the other team, but to become friends with them. It's like

>> that's what I was doing

>> as a kid.

>> As a kid and and I I thought that was normal and I could just be by myself and invent these whole worlds envisioning things and and and how and mostly what I was doing was trying to figure out, well, why do we have to have a war in the first place? And my brother was much more like, "Let's just blow them all up and be done with it."

>> He was an evangelist.

>> Yeah. He was a. Yeah.

>> Sorry. Yeah, correct. Um, and so early on, I that was I had that capacity and I knew it and I I gravitated towards invention and scenarios in my mind, but I really believed that they could play out. I really thought that they could be made real. And so it was never delusional or dangerous to me, but it was actually helpful. But it was criticized to to have that. And so then I began to like sequester it or hide it that that's how my mind worked. Are you still criticized?

>> I sometimes, yeah, because I I will present an idea. I mean, how many how many people do this? You you have an idea. It's it's like a flash of insight in your intuitive mind and it seems crazy and you go to verbalize it and it and when you say it out to rational people, it sounds absolutely insane. And so that's what I love about reading scripture. It's like I, uh, when when you're reading about Abraham or Moses or Joshua, they're getting these downloads on tactics and strategy that are just mind-boggling. But they're so, if you if you could stand next to them and they're they're receiving this inspiration from an angel or from God, the voice of God, whatever that creative spirit that's influencing them, and it's moving them forward. It's pushing them out. It's not turning them inward and down. It's pushing them up and out. And not only them, it's it's typically other-focused, which is another beautiful sign of the intuitive mind, the imagination as inspired by God is it's other-focused. The fantasy is very self-focused and very inward and downward. And so imagine those men and women having these visions and the these ideas, which is crazy in their own mind, but then when they have to go present it as a legitimate strategy, it sounds insane. And so, but that encouraged me in scripture. You know, when you when you're reading those stories, if you're paying attention to the story and Joshua, you know, is a military guy and he's going to take the Israelites into the land and take Jericho. And he's trying to figure out how to do it. And he's looking at it and he's saying, "Look, they're shut up for war. They're ready. These guys are major soldiers. They're major defenders." And he's trying to figure out, "What are we going to do to take this place?" And, uh, looking at the very same facts, the the angel says to him, "Look, they're ready for you to take them." They're both looking at the exact same facts. Joshua and his rational mind is saying, "We're never, we're nothing compared to this. How are we going to strategically militarily take this place?" And the angel is the inspiration, the intuitive part of his mind is saying, "It's ready to be taken."

>> Yeah. And then his next question because he pursues it instead of shutting it down, he pursues it and he says, "How?" And then the, I mean, if you can imagine this for his brain, he has this idea. What if we, what if we just use the band to go in there, you know, and use the instruments this time instead of the soldiers, the military. We don't need special ops. We need like the clarinet section this time. Like that's his idea that comes to him and just tell, you know, let they don't get to do anything. Let them do it this time. Let them go march around and, you know, blow their horns and let them be a part of this. And it's really brilliant, but he doesn't quite understand the brilliance of it, but he gets the plan. Then he, and that's crazy, but then he has to go communicate it to the joint chiefs, like, "Here's my new plan. Here's how we're going to take this place. We're going to send in the band and they're going to go around for seven days and what are they going to do? Blow their horns." Exactly. That's what they're going to do. But just at certain times. And and when you read that passage in scripture, the whole, the Hebraic thinking in the whole passage is based on the word sound. The whole passage of Jericho is about the word sound. It's so scientifically brilliant because they're using sonic dissonance. They just didn't know what that was. But that's what inspiration is. That's what inspiration is. It's it's like, wow, you can use sound because what they want is the place to collapse. They want the walls to fall down, but in such a way that Rahab's apartment isn't affected by it. That's called demolition. So, it has to drop down. It can't fall out like this. And so, to do that, you have to put demolition cracks in the whole place strategically. And then when they're all set after seven days of of frequencies hitting the the walls, then if you all hit it at one time, the whole thing will just drop. And so, and and so he tells the people on this day, every every no one can even talk. It's got to be absolutely silent for the sound to be effective. So when I, so I taught this at Georgia Tech.

>> I taught this passage at Georgia Tech and I said, "Do any of you believe the story of Jericho?" Oh, you know, uh, and then I taught it and they were like, "Sonic dissonance. That's what this is. This is brilliant. We can do that with our speakers and the dorm. They could make the dorm go like this with their speakers."

>> Oh my god.

>> That's what. And they're like, "This. They figured this out then. How inspiration. That's what it is. The intuitive mind. And that is a beautiful, powerful story. But when you go to present that idea before it's understood, like like Einstein presenting his four papers on relativity, everyone says the person is insane.

>> Yeah.

>> Because that's our reaction to everything new that scares us and we can't put it in a box, is that's insane and we're not going to do it until he demonstrates it. But where did he get it from? Imagination, inspiration from above, from outside of himself. And this is the, this is the whole Bible is about this. So anytime a child is doing that, we want to foster it and encourage it and make them bring it out here. Like, "Write that down. Draw that. What do you say? How, what are you thinking? Like, do it like this." Instead of saying, "Hey, pay attention to this. You need to study this right here. Focus. Focus." It's like, "Don't do this. Focus on this. Drop down out of the intuitive into the rational and stay there because that's where we're going to live." And it hurts. It damages us. So that's your opening.

>> Yeah.

>> Thanks for coming.

>> Okay, I'm going to pivot for a second. I want to activate the storyteller because I think that there's a lot of fruit in scripture about this, but there's also fruit very recent in this. Some of this I'm not sure, like, you just tell me what you're not comfortable sharing, but okay. When I came to see you in January, you told me a story about, um, was it the School of God? Uh, the people who created the School of God in Palestine?

>> Keep going. I don't remember.

>> You brought them over. He saw Jesus.

>> Um, they were, you were telling like talking about shooting and stuff. Do you remember the story? Do do you feel comfortable sharing that? This is one of the most amazing because there's fruit behind this if we would just get listen and get it. Uh, but no one's doing what you're doing. So that story made me not sleep for a couple of days. So I was would love you to share it so they don't sleep.

>> Yeah. So, yeah. So, so all of us here now, if you'll open up your mind, open up the intuitive part of your mind, the spiritual part of your mind and receive you, you all will be filled with creativity, creative ideas because you're co-creators with God. All humans are. So I'm inviting you to do that while we're talking here. So we, we were in the working in the Middle East and, um, Israel-Palestine arena, obviously lots of conflict there. And so, um, we were praying and asking God, "What can we do to really not only not only, um, help foster peace, but demonstrate that it could be done?" Do you know how many people just say, "It's not going to ever happen. It'll just never happen. This is going to be war forever." That's called quitting. That's what that is. That's called lazy quitting. Don't do that. Don't do that. And so, you're a co-creator with God. And so, we were asking God, "What can we do?" We've done this on a b number of topics, but what can we do to demonstrate a strategy to bring peace in the Middle East? Because pretty much everyone's given up on it or picked one side. And, um, and so I had this idea. I was asked by this church in Texas. It's important that it's Texas because it's Texas, obviously.

>> Yeah. I don't know if I would cheer for that, but I'm just saying.

>> Um, it was. And so I was asked to speak at this men's retreat. And so I, I had this idea. What would happen if we took five militant Muslim guys from the West Bank to the, oh my gosh, to the men's retreat in Texas? Like, what would happen if you took five militant Muslims and put them in a dorm full of Texas Christians? What would happen? Recipe for peace, right? Um, and so I, I asked the men's retreat leadership, "Can I, because you guys are going to have to be responsible if I bring them, can, would you be, would you be okay if I bring five, um, of these guys to the men's retreat in in Texas?" Guess what they said? No. And I said, "Is it a, is it a men's retreat? Isn't that what you call it? A men's retreat? Is it for men? Or is it only for some men, certain men? Because if it's only for certain men, then call it that. It's a restricted men's retreat to people that believe what we believe and that's all, then say that. But if it's a men's retreat, why can't I bring any men?" And they said, "No, we don't want them." Anyway, so, so then I went back, but we're not, but I kind of expected that. So then back to the Middle East, and I went to the Palestinian guys, five of them, and we picked very specifically which ones we wanted leaders. We wanted, um, we wanted people very committed to Islam. We wanted the Saul of Tarsus types. We wanted them. And, um, and so we talked to a bunch, we were working in there for a year. And so of the five we selected, one of them had been in an Israeli prison 13 times and both his brothers were executed by Israel. We wanted him to come, right? Him, because if the spirit could work in him, if we could see transformation there, then we could then there could be peace. Because in the Muslim culture, in the Middle East culture, it's an honor-shame culture. And so if someone kills both of your older brothers, the your family demands that their honor be restored and it's only can be done by fighting. So, um, so him, I invited him and four other guys, leaders, and I said, "Would you be willing if it was possible to come to the United States to Texas to go to a Christian men's retreat?" And they said, "No." So we got all the teams saying no so far. Perfect. Like nobody wants that. Good. So then I go to the Israelis and I, because they can't leave the West Bank without Israeli permission. They can't move. Most of these guys have never been outside of their town in their life because they're not allowed to travel. They don't have documents. They've never even seen where they were actually born because of the restrictions on their movement. And so I went to the Israelis and I said, "Can I take five of these guys, um, to a men's retreat in Texas?" And they said, "Which ones?" And I said, "Well, this guy that..." And they said, "There is no way. No, we will not allow that." So no, no, no. Why don't we have peace in the world? I, I don't get it. Um, why is it so hard? And so then I went to the American, to the consular office in Jerusalem and I said, "If I brought five Palestinian guys here, would you give them the visas to go with me to a church men's retreat in Texas? Um, would you give them permission to go and I'll be responsible for him for, you know, a week or whatever?" And they, the guy laughed at me, the American guy, he laughed at me and he said, "How are you going to get those guys into this place that you'll never get them through Israel? There's no way." Especially the guys you're talking about, they'll never give be given permission to come. But if you could get permission, haha, I'll give them the documents. So that was a 50% okay. Yes. Is our first affirmative. It's like the Wizard of Oz. "Bring us the witch's broom and, yeah, we'll do it." Like, 'cause you're never going to do it. So, okay. So now we had a way. So we prayed and we said, "God, okay, these five men." So the five men said, "If you if you can get us to the US and get visas, we'll go." And so they said, "Okay." So I was praying like, "How, how do we do this? Because we can't break the law. We want to honor everybody. Is there a way to do this that we don't know about?" Whenever you ask God if there's a way to do something that you don't know about, there's always a way you don't know about. I promise you. Um, and so I was talking to this Israeli soldier captain one day and he worked in the West Bank and he was, you know, sort of, um, being cocky about his position and what he could do. And he said, "I can take anyone anywhere I want in the West Bank." I said, "Can you take him in Israel?" He said, "I can take anybody anywhere I want." And I said, "Could you take five, like, not really popular guys that have never been allowed out into Israel?" And he said, "I can take anybody I want for 48 hours in and out of Israel." And I said, "I'll take that challenge. I'll take it 'cause I got five guys." And he was like, "Oh, well, for 48 hours." I said, "That's all I need. 48 hours. Come." So imagine the surprise to these Palestinians when the Israelis came to escort them to the US embassy in Jerusalem. They're like, "What? What are they here for? To arrest us?" No, these are your drivers to the US embassy. So you should have seen the face of the American counselor guy when we all, "Hi, we're here for what?" "For the visas." And I had coached the the Palestinian guys on how to be interviewed. I was, because they didn't know what a men's retreat is. And they were like, "What is this retreat?" And I said, "Well, h I said, "Well, it's in Texas, so it's fun. You'll have fun. They We're going to eat pork. We're going to a lot of pork." Um, I didn't tell them that. They just discovered that on their own. They're like, "What is this?" Wow. Um, it's very good. Yeah. Well, you're going to need Jesus right now 'cause. So, so I, but one thing I told him is that they do skeet shooting. I don't know why I said that. I shouldn't have said that. Skeet shooting. I explained what it was. And so, the first guy that's been in the prison 13 times, he goes in for the interview and I was with, I would go with each one of them. And there, and the American guy goes, "What are you going to do while you're in the US?" And he, he said, "We will eat the barbecue and shoot guns." That's what he said. And and then, and the American guy, "You're not going. You're not going." So I was like, "NO, NO, NOT NO. THEY'RE going to do skeet shooting. Don't." And I went out and say, "Don't say anything about shooting guns in the interview." Like, "Don't say that." Anyway, we explained it. They got, we got the permission. We got the permit and they told me the Americans said to me, "If that particular, the one guy I was on, they said, if that guy, if anything happens to that guy while you're in the US, you are going to jail. If that guy, if anything happens, you're going to jail." Okay, that's where that. And so we went, it, we went, and these guys had never, they've never seen water. They've never seen a body of water.

>> Wow.

>> They've never been in an airplane. They've never been in an airport. They've never been free to go 10 miles out of where they live ever in their life. And they're in their 30s and 40s. If you can imagine that. And so when they got on an airplane, they, and the one was a school superintendent, he was looking down and he just saw the world for the first time from that high up and he said, "This is the kingdom of God." Melut law. They say, "This is the king." He goes, "This is how God sees the world. He doesn't see the walls and the divides. He just sees these lights and these. Isn't this the way we're supposed to see the world?" They've never seen the world above a wall ever. And so they, we, they land in Houston and when they get off the plane, they all get out. Now, it's a little bit different today, but at this time, they all got out. They took out their ID cards and just held them up over their head like this, walking around like, "What are you doing? We're waiting to get stopped. We're waiting to get interrogated." Now, today that might happen to them, but in this time when we were there, that wasn't the case. And they came through and the American guys are like, "Welcome to the US." And they're like, "What is this?" And they walked, I said, "Put those things away. You are in a free country now. No one is going to stop you and ask you where you're from and who you are. We're not going to, we don't do that here." And they couldn't believe it. And they cried. They cried. And they, like, one of them was getting his bags and the, and the person, the person next to him said, "Um, can I get your bag for you?" Because it was an older guy. And he turns to me and he goes, "They must not know I'm a Palestinian." I'm like, "Why?" "They tried to help me." This is how the world is. They, you don't know. And so we get to the, they, we drove from the airport. This is Houston. They thought we were like driving across the United States of America. All we were doing is driving across Houston. Like they've never, like, "Where is this? In Canada?" And, uh, "No, no, this is how big, this is how big this place is." They just couldn't believe it. I took them one time at the end down to Galveston and they just went out and stood in the water and cried their eyes out just standing in the surf at Galveston. Um, they watch out for the oil slicks. And so they go to the retreat and it was very tense at that retreat. But before they, be before they even got there, I went to the biggest mosque in Houston and I invited the leaders of the mosque to come to the retreat. I was like, "I'm inviting you to the Christian men's retreat we're having over here." They go, "No one's ever invited us to a Christian men's retreat before." I'm like, "I know. Sorry. Um, you're so far away from us. You're a mile from our church, so we don't invite you, but, um, anyway, we'd love for you to come. We can make it so you can pray and all that." You know, that's why they don't come because we don't make a place that they can come to.

>> Um, we make it so they can't come. But anyway, so I said, and I said, "By the way, I'm bringing five radical guys from Palestine." And they're like, "You are?" They said, "We wouldn't even invite those guys to our retreat." Like, we don't have retreats, but we wouldn't invite them. And I said, "Well, we did." And they ca, they said, "We want to come to see that." So, they came and they sat, the mosque leadership sat right in the front row of the men's retreat. This is the kingdom of God. This is what it's supposed to look like. And they sat in the front row and the Christian men were like, "Who, who are these people?" Like, "Who, who invited them?" And so it was just so be, and it was all tense. So the, the, the Palestinian guys get there and I told the person, "Don't, don't put them together. Just put one in that bunk house and one over there. Don't let them be together. Just throw them in with the Texans." And so the whole first night, everyone was afraid that someone was going to kill someone else. The whole first night, we didn't know who would draw first. It was wild. Um, but it was very tense. There was a lot of fear. 600 men came because of the fact that the Palestinian guys were there. So they came. So I taught the first night and, and we did the book of Ephesians because that's what the Christians wanted to do, which is very high Christology, very difficult to teach for Muslims. It's like Jesus is way up here right away. So, but we did it and, um, and the Muslim guys in the front row, they were from Pakistan and, um, India, and they started taking notes on what, what I was saying about Christ and the supremacy and reconciliation and all of that. And so that, so it's pretty calm the first night, but what we were worried about was when they all went back to the, you know, the bunks and we just kind of just prayed through the night. The next morning, we no events at the night. The next morning they come in and I start to speak. All of them come back. The guys from the mosque all come back. They all come back. It's funny because they all paid to come. It's like they paid, these Muslim guys paid to come to this. Do you know why? 'Cause they care about their families. They don't, they want to talk about marriages. Where are they going to go to do this?

>> Right? And so they were there. And so I was, we were doing working through Ephesians. And then if you're speaking in a mosque, if you, I don't know if you've ever spoken in a mosque, but if you're speaking in a mosque and they don't agree with what you say, they just stand up and yell at you. It's not like a church where you just anonymously insult the pastor to death, you know, like they're more courageous. They'll just stand up and yell at you. So I knew that if anything was bothering them, they were going to stand up in the middle of the session. I knew I was waiting for it. And so the morning I start talking and Hassan, the 13 times in prison, he stands up and he's got his hand up like this and, and I was pretty sure he didn't like have to go to the restroom or anything. And so I stop and I go, "Hassan, what do you want to say?" 'Cause that's his culture and that's it. When I have spoken in a mosque and this is what you do, or he'll just start yelling. And so I say, "What?" He goes, "I have something to say." And I'm like, "Okay, okay, go ahead." And he said, "I, I want to say it to the whole group." And I'm like, "Okay." And he walks all the way up onto the stage and he says, "Last night Jesus came to our bunk house." And all the Christian guys were like, "He did. He came to you. He's our guy. He's our team. He's against your team. How did he come to your team anyway?" And so Hassan says, "Yeah, he came to, Jesus came into my room, into the dorm, and he said to me that he wanted to give me a burden, a weight to carry." And, and Hassan said, "What is it?" And Jesus said, "I want you to carry back to your, he led a group, a group. He said, 'I want you to disband that group. I want you to go back and say we're not fighting anymore. That we're going to replace this with peace.'" It's the first night of the retreat.

>> Wow.

>> The first night of the retreat. And so he said, "I'm, I want to stand up in front of all of you men and you hold me accountable to go back and do that." And Jaime's coming with me. And I was like, "What? He didn't come to my bunk. He came to your bunk." Um, and so, so through the retreat, all five of those men came to faith very visibly in front of everybody else and they stood up and they would talk about it and then one of them asked me if he could get baptized on YouTube and we were like, "No, no, you can't get back." But he wanted and we did it. We put it on YouTube that how is how fast he was willing to make known to his people what had happened

>> at that retreat. So, we went back. I went with Hassan to his group. They, they met in this certain location. And he, it's a, it's a sacred spot where they meet. And he said, "This place from now on will become the first place of prayer in our community because we are not fighting anymore because Al-Mia, that's his way of saying the Messiah, Al-Masia met me in Texas and told me the Christians are not our enemy and we're not going to fight anymore." Right. And then his men y screamed at him like, "What? Who's deceived you?" And they're all looking at me. I'm like, "Jesus, Jesus was in the bunk house. Um, and he, and so then, so it was so powerful. Hassan today is a PhD and he leads a freedom institute. He, he got a PhD after this and he leads a freedom institute in the Middle East. I mean, you can go read his stuff. He's a big peace activist. The next year, the next year, they came, all of them wanted to go back to the retreat again. They brought more people and they brought their wives. We ended up having to do a women's retreat. Um, and that's what can happen when you dream with God. Wow. Wow. How amazing is that? That's insane. That's the fruit. That's the fruit. Uh, you were in the Sahara desert on another trip and, uh, I would like, I think this is a good story to share, uh, because it instigates again other people with other belief systems seeing something. Can you share that story where the angel shows up?

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so we went on a, we were working on a project in the Sahara Desert, um, among a refugee population, Muslim population, 200,000, 300,000 of them, um, kicked out of Western Sahara when when Spain withdrew from Western Sahara and it got annexed by Morocco and this whole population of Sahari Muslims got kicked out into the desert of Algeria and then weren't allowed back into their country. Happened in the 70s. It's the worst refugee situation in the world that nobody knows about. Um, and so that population really struggles and, and they've been there for many years and they're never going to go back. I mean, there's no chance of that happening. And so there's a lot of, uh, opportunity for terrorist groups to, to foment, foment there. And so we were in there doing with this amazing woman who started this work there. She's an unbelievable lady and from Appleton, Wisconsin that had a dream that this is something she should do and she started this. So, we were, we became involved in this project and so we, we went out there, me and a couple of other guys went out there. We'd been out, I'd been out there before. Um, these two guys had never been. We went together and, um, they, the other two guys with me were questioning me about, "Does God really speak? Does God really work?" They were, they were professional people, military people, and they wanted to know. And I said, "Well, rather than me doing a lecture on the topic for you, why don't you just come with me to a place and just see? Come and come out and see what God does and stop just sitting in your house hoping something happens, like get out there." That's another theme in the Bible, like get out there. Jesus says, "I come into the fold and lead you out, right?" And so they came with me. We went to this, and I told them because you have to, it's complicated to get there and you have to go in at night and all this stuff. It's way out in the desert. And so we get out there and I said, "We're going to go, we're going to get in there at night. They're going to tell us to sleep in this certain, these gigantic, you know, Bedouin style tents. They're going to put us in a room to sleep. We're going to sleep there and the next morning we're going to come out and they're going to have laid out in this other section of the tent, um, uh, food on the ground. We're going to sit on the floor. We're going to eat. And they're not going to come in until we're finished because it's impolite to watch your guest eat." Because if, if they're watching their guests, you won't eat as much you'd normally eat if they weren't there. It's really actually polite, you know, 'cause then you can eat the dessert and go, "Oh, no. I, I don't want any." You would actually just eat it 'cause they're not there. So that's what they do. Good Arab hospitality. Are we hospitality? And so we go into the, this place and there's, there's three of us and there's four place settings on the ground. And we sit down and one of the guys says to me, like, "Who's the fourth setting for?" And I said, "I don't know. I don't know." He goes, and he wouldn't get off of it. He's like, "Well, there's three of us. Why is there four settings?" I like, "I don't know." He said, "Is someone going to join us?" I'm like, "I don't know. I don't know. Stop asking me." No, I've never seen them do this. So, we go and we meet with, we're meeting with these imams, 12 imams of the tribes, and we have these meetings. Come to the lunch break, go back, they send us back to this room, four place settings, three of us. My friend is like, "Okay, why are there, I don't get why there's four settings." And we go around and around. So, we're there for a few days and they keep doing this. We, so one night we're sitting and drinking tea with the imams and who, who were not all friendly. Um, one of them was pretty adamant that we should be killed. He was just saying it out loud. That's how adamant he was, like, "We ought to just kill these guys. We know who they are and they're not our friends and all that." And he was, he was vocal about it, but the rest of them were like restrained. And so, um, my friend decides, "I'm gonna ask him about the fourth place setting." And I'm like, "Whatever." And so they speak Sahara, um, is, Hassania is the language they speak there. They speak Spanish and Hassania. And so he, my friend switches into Spanish. And he asks the lead imam, he said, "Well, I'm just curious about the custom of you guys putting out four place settings for three of us." And the guy goes, "That's not our custom. We don't have that custom." And he said, "Well, then why are you setting four place settings when there's only three of us?" And he, and the guy goes, "For your security guy. Doesn't he eat?" And, um, and my friend looks at me like, "What? Our security?" And he looks back and he goes, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Your security guy. Doesn't he ever come?" "I know. Doesn't he's always standing outside your tent. Does he, doesn't he ever come in and eat? He's out there all night. Doesn't he come in and eat?" And, um, I'm like, "Then I know who our security guy is because we've had this happen before, something like this. It's not unusual in that part of the world." And so, um, the guy's my friend's looking at me and I'm like, "Ask him." And he says, he, he goes, "What does our security guy look like?" That's what he said. And, and the imam says, "Oh my gosh, you can't see him, can you?" And then they, the imams start talking among themselves and they use the word mallayat, which is the word for angel. And they're like, the, their security, God, security guy is mallay, an angel of God. That's what they said. And, and I was, I was like, "Our security, our security guy's an angel of..." And, and the imam goes, "He's bigger than you guys. He's bigger than you. Um, but he looks like you." And he said, "But we've been dying to ask you about why does your security guy have a sword?" And we were like, "Our security guy has a sword." And then they knew, they knew since we couldn't see him that he was there for them to see him and for them to know that God was with us to protect us. And so I asked my friend later in the dark, he, we were that night, it was pitch black out there and so we couldn't even see each other in the tent and he, he whispered to me and he goes, "Hey," he called me, "Sir, sir." And I said, "What?" And he goes, "How many do you think are in here with us right now?" I SAID, "I DON'T SHUT UP. I don't, I don't know." Um, and so that's, so that was a turning point in that guy's life, the guy that was with me, because his whole question was, "Is this stuff real?" And I didn't have to answer that question. God answered that question. So my challenge to you is, if you wonder if this stuff is real, ask him. And then when he says, "Come, I'll show you that it's real," go with him.

Amazing. Can I ask one quick thing on that?

>> Yeah, go for it.

>> So that does that, in your experience, does that tend to only happen outside the United States or is it also, have you seen it also happen here?

>> I've heard it happen here. I've never experienced it here. I've only personally experienced it overseas. I'm, I'm sure it does happen here, but in that world, they're much more open to that kind of thing happening. They're much more receptive of it and looking for it. Yeah. So, I mean, we could go into a mosque in pretty much anywhere and say, "Raise your hand if you're having a dream about Nebuchadnezzar, the prophet Jesus," and people in the mosque will raise their hands. And those are the first people we share the kingdom with because they're the ones that are already having contact with Jesus. And we just would ask because a long time ago, we used to think, you know, "We're going to go take Jesus to the world." And Jesus is like, "I'm already in the world. I'm already out here. I'm inviting you to come see what I'm doing and to be a part of what I'm doing." And so that was a, a new thing for us to learn. He's already out there. He's always at work. He loves all people and he's with them. And so it's just in that part of the world, they're they're more open to the intuitive, I think, than locked down in the rational.

>> Um, and so they're, their eyes see more than our eyes see.

>> Yeah. On that, on that note, how much of your learning about God or having these experiences are in the midst of conflict or risk?

>> Yeah. Or suffering?

>> Or suffering?

>> Right. Yeah. You said it the other day, Taylor. You said Jesus learned obedience. Learned to hear and obedience to hear and respond. Jesus learned to hear and respond to God through what he suffered. That's Jesus. That's how he learned, through what he suffered. And so Jesus didn't come to take away suffering. He came to teach us how to suffer like a king. That's what he came to teach us how to do. So to embrace suffering as part of a gift, actually, if you embrace suffering, then suffering can become blessing and training and learning and grace-producing.

If you resist suffering, it becomes tragedy and pain. That's all and bitterness. So it's better just to embrace it. So, yeah, in situations where people were suffering, we were suffering or struggling or in conflict. Yeah, that's where the Prince of Peace really shows up.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Um, has there ever been a moment, 'cause you, you talk about the invitation. God's always inviting us into things. Um, and when you he invites you and you say yes, that's your default answer, which is, I, I wish that was my default answer. My default answer is usually, "Why? That looks risky." So, but I eventually get to it. But I, I do want to ask you if there's been a moment when you have said yes and then in the middle of it wished that you would have said no, or potentially even instead of being perfect and trusting God, tried to figure out how to change your answer in the middle of it?

Yeah.

Has that ever happened to you?

Yeah. Lots of times.

Can you help us relate with you by sharing one of those moments?

Yeah. There's a lot of times where I would say yes and then as soon as it starts, I'm like, "Wow, I can't do that again."

Because, because when you, you know, when you say yes, you have this certain hope that it's going to go a certain way.

Yeah.

And you know how many times it goes the way you think it's going to go?

Never.

Never. I don't think ever. As that went the way I pretty much thought God was going to do it. It just, I mean, read the Bible. It's not going to do. That is not going to happen. Like, I love how people say, "We, we take the Bible literally." No, you don't. You do not. You do not. Because if you took it literally, you'd be living a whole different life. You take the parts literally that you want to take literally, and the rest of it, you literally ignore. That's what you do.

Um, but so, yeah, I think there's times I'm just trying to think of, um, yeah, you know, when, like, like the time that I got arrested in Indonesia. Like, th I was, we were willing, we said to God, Don and I, you know, we're willing to go, you know, lay down our life for the gospel. We didn't know what that meant, you know. And then, do any of you know Elizabeth Elliott? Do you remember Elizabeth Elliott? Jim Elliot's, if for, for those of you that are old, Jim Elliot, who was killed in, um, Ecuador by the Auca Indians, him and his four friends. And Elizabeth Elliott stayed, and the wives stayed even after their husbands were killed. Elizabeth Elliott, she's unbelievable. And, uh, one time, just as a prerequisite to that question, I went to her, really in an arrogant, cocky way, before we had ever done anything on the field. But, and I said to her, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm having dreams about us going to Indonesia and our oldest son dying there. Like, I kept having this dream about that, and I was really scared about it. So I went to her, uh, Elizabeth Elliott, and I said to her, "I'm, I'm having these dreams about my son, you know, dying, and I, I, you know, is, is it a warning from God not to go?" And she said, she wasn't very nice. She was, she was a good woman, but she wasn't very friendly. And she said, she said, "I don't live my life based on hypothetical scenarios," which is what we do. Hypothetical. God's not in the hypothetical, so it produces fear. And she said, "And by the way, just because you go doesn't mean you have to come back." And I was like, "Okay." I told Donna, "Don't go ask her any questions. Stay away from Elizabeth." She was so beautiful. She wrote a great quote in the book for us on the way out.

And so when we went to Indonesia, we were saying to God, "We are willing to do whatever it takes." We weren't, but we were saying that. That's talking straight out of your head and not out of your heart.

And so, yeah, we'll lay down our lives for. And then, um, and then when we get there, and it's way we thought, you know, we really believe that people were just going to fall down and embrace Jesus as soon as, as soon as we opened our mouths. And it just didn't. I mean, I, there, there's stories I haven't told before, but it was remarkable what did happen, but it didn't happen the way we thought at all. And the, the, um, original, the people kind of liked us at first, but then they really grew to dislike us, which we weren't prepared for. We didn't know that if you present the good news in a way different than God presents it, it's, it's a repellent to people. So Paul says, "If you do, if you speak with the tongues of angels and the tongues of men and you have all knowledge and you lay yourself, you sacrifice yourself to the flames and you do that without love, not only does it not work, it's an irritant to people." So we were going to go win everybody without love. That's what we were going to do. And you can't do it. It can't be done. And so we were going to use clever, um, apologetics and polemics to woo the Muslims and them to go, "Wow, that's the smartest thing we've ever heard. We change. We're going to believe what you believe now." Like that kind of thing. Like argue them into it and attack the Quran. Attack, attack and extract. We called the strategy, "Attack and Extract." Remember Jesus teaching that? That's how we learned. Attack their faith. Attack it. Tear it apart. Rip it to shreds. And then extract them out of their people into our team. And that's what we were doing. And, and they began to really dislike us doing that to them, which is like, I don't know why I didn't understand that beforehand. One, one pastor said, "Apologetics and polemics, why I'm right and why you're wrong. Has that ever worked with your wife? Why do you think it works cross-culturally in another population?" It doesn't. And so we were doing that, and then they became more and more hostile towards us. And I was, and, and I know if Donna was up here, she would say the same thing. After like three years, four years of that, I got arrested. You really start to question God, like, "Why aren't you here? And why are we here? Like, why are we here? What are we doing? It doesn't work. Nothing's happening." And not only are they not coming to faith, they're actually more hostile towards us. And so that was a time, I mean, for not just a couple of days, it was for like years. We were saying, "I, I don't know if we should have said yes to this," but we were committed to staying there. But I was so, I was so, um, like, I'm the kind of person like, "Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go." And Donna's like, "I don't know. We ought to think and pray about this." "Ah, let's go. Let's go. Let's go." And we get there, and a year, six months after we're there, I'm like, "What are we doing here?" And Don's like, "I'm never leaving." That's our marriage right there. And so I would, so we had some bad things happen to people on our, we had, there was two other couples working with us, and one of them got, um, stabbed violently in the middle of the night. They broke into his house and stabbed him, and they had to medevac him out, and they left. And the other family had health struggles, and they had to leave. And it was just me and Donna left. And it was getting more, our house got broken into, and it was getting really hostile. And I would lay, this is the kind of great spiritual leader I am in those days. I would lay in bed going, "Do you know, Don, if someone broke into our house right now, there's not a thing we could do about it. I mean, there is, we can't get off this island. There's no 911. There is nothing. There's 3 million of them and two of us and three and a half of the our kids. Like, there are no, you help. So, it's just me and you. And there's nothing we could do about that population if they just decide to come in here and kill us." I would say that to Donna at night, just to, you know, get it off my chest and pile it on her. And that's the kind of fear we lived in. And, yeah, in those days, it was really difficult. Um, at the end of those four or five years, I said to God, 'cause we had to leave, it was too hostile. Um, I said, "I'm, we're leaving and we are not coming. I am never coming back unless there is another way to do this, 'cause I am not, I, I, I would say to Donna, I am not coming back and living in a place where the people hate us. There's no air conditioning and no NFL football, unless there's some kind of return and this isn't happening." And that's how we left. Pretty upset, pretty bitter.

Yep.

And the three years in the US was the darkest time in our life, probably after that.

Got it. Yeah. Go for it. I want to ask you, so I've had this moment in my life of similar to what you're saying of like, clearly the way I'm presenting God is making people hate me and God simultaneously more than when I started talking.

Yeah.

So you've got almost this like one side versus like, we want to represent God. Well, what did you do in the middle? Like, how did, did you just stop sharing your faith? Like, what did you do in that middle when you're in that transition and you're like, trying to get healthy, you're a little paranoid, and in your case, you're just trying not to get killed or arrested, but,

What does that middle look like? Like, how did he learn?

Like how did he learn?

Yeah. How do you learn that?

Yeah. So first, we stopped talking. We just showed up, which I think was what God was trying to say all along. Just don't just stop talking.

And listen. We didn't look, we didn't listen. We just talked and we just knew what we were going to say. We knew the plan. We knew how to talk. Um, and we just never, it never occurred to us to ask God, "What do you want me to say to this person?" That minor, that, "Do you want the whole four-point outline again?" You know. And then never really reading the scriptures and going, "How is Jesus talking to people?" Just never, we just never did it. We got the plan. We learned the plan. We did the plan. We knew what passages in scripture to go to, but we never, like, read the whole thing. Like, why is he saying this? And why is Paul, you know, using these verses? And so, so we just went silent. Because mostly what people, we, there were a few people that came to faith, which was dramatic and beautiful. I can tell you about one of those, but, but it was so outside of anything we did. So it was like, "Wow, the Lord did that." But I, I, I don't even know how that happened. And so, but then we just kind of went silent. And then when we, so then we had to leave. We pretty much got forced out. We had to go back to the States. And back in the States, Donna said to me, because she, Donna really believed that there was a way through this. She really did. I, I was frustrated and, you know, wanted the results and didn't get it. And so she, and so she said to me when we came back in the States, because she knew we belonged there. I did too. But we came back in the States and she said, "Promise me that we won't stay in the United States, 'cause if we stay here, we're never going to learn. We've got, it's got to be over there is where we're going to learn. And not, we're not going to learn here." And so I said, "I promise you." And then I did. I wouldn't leave because, because our pastor of our church at the time asked me not to leave, not to go back, to say, "Stay and help save the church." And so I agreed. And Donna was really heartbroken that I said that. I did that. And I went straight down the drain spiritually, straight down the drain. And so even, so more quiet, more silent, more arc. And for three years, just, I, I mean, I just was doing anything to survive mentally, emotionally, financially, anything I could do. And Donna would just cry. That's all she knew not to like argue about. She just would cry and just, she just would hang in there with me. And then, um, one day, this was the turning point for me. It's why we talk about this all the time. She said to me, she said, she looked at me and she said, "Can you just tell the truth about anything right now? Can you say something truthful about anything right now?" Which was a really fascinating question, because I was living in such deception. You don't know how much deception you're living because it's, you never challenge it. It never gets challenged. You just. And so I said, "Okay, I can say the truth about this. I have completely lost my way. I am so directionless. I have so, I don't know my way. This is after the police department, after getting recruited by the State Department, after all of that, grad school, five years overseas. I've completely lost my way. All the things I'd seen God do. It was like, you know, order, disorder, reader, but it's like he was trying to move us to this other level and I wouldn't go. I wouldn't, I wouldn't receive from him. I didn't know how to receive to get to the next level. And so I just, we just kept doing what we doing and we shut down." And so she said that to me. I said that to her. I just, I, I just have lost my way. And she said, "I know." And as soon as I spoke the truth out loud, "You shall know and experience the truth, and the truth will always set you free. Truth always sets humans free. Truth does. Truth. Who is truth? I am truth. I am the truth." And so I said that. I said, and, and she said, um, "I'm going to pray that you find your way again." And I, I left the house. It was in January. I left the house and I got on this ferry to cross the Potomac. We were up in the DC area and I was up on the top of the ferry, but because it was freezing, by myself. And I was, and I just said to God, I yelled out, "You're going to kill me. You're, you're killing me. I don't know what to do. You're killing me." And this is, this is the most, v, I had a lot of experiences with the spirit of God in police work, but I've never had him talk to me this loud. I thought it was a person behind me. That I turned around. He said, "What is it that you do? What do you do?" And I turned around and I, I was like, and I said, "I live in other countries and I write books." That's what I said. Then he said, "What are you doing here then? I didn't invite you to live here. I didn't ask you to stay here. Your pastor asked you to stay here. He is not me." And that was it. That was the breakthrough point for me. And I got off there and I quit the job I had. And I said, um, to God, "You open the way. You open the way and I'm back. We're back. Well, I'll go anywhere you want to go and I will learn to talk the way you talk and we will learn to do it the way you tell us to do it and not the way we were told how to do it." And that was January. That by that fall, we were back in Indonesia, fully funded, in a new position. And we met the people that changed our lives in terms of, "Burn everything you know about evangelism. Burn everything you know about theology. Open up the gospel. Start reading and stop adding to what Jesus says and start again." And it was life-changing. And learn to listen to his voice. "What do you want me to know? What do you want me to do?" All the time. Don't assume you know. "What do you want me to know and what do you want me to do?" And that's when we learned how to reach out to Muslims. It's when Donna was led the way on like, just being totally spiritually transformed. She walked me into it. I was, didn't want to do it, of course. And that was it. Just went silent. We just went into this silent period until, um, I could tell the truth. And once I started telling the truth,

Yep.

It opens up.

I have one more question about this vein, and then I want to see if I can get you into some dangerous territory if you're, we'll, we'll see where where you can go. Do you think it's a frequent thing for you to still wrestle with doubts about whether God can hold up his end of the bargain or not in the middle, or has that been eradicated?

Not eradicated, but like, I've seen him do so much, so many times that, um, it's not that I doubt it. It's more like, "When are you going to do it?" Like, it's more about timing to me now than, "Is it going to happen?"

I'm past the, I'm past the, "Is this God's voice? Is this my voice?" You get past all of that just from training and experience. And you get to, I mean, I don't know anything that I think right now that would be impossible. I really don't. You know, what we've done with human trafficking and peace talks. I mean, I don't think anything's, I really don't believe anything's impossible. I really don't believe that.

So more it's about timing.

Do you get frustrated about his timing?

Yes.

Okay. Good.

Always.

I'm feeling more normal.

No, I'm always frustrated with his timing. Yeah. Do you express that with? Can you, can you show us how to, 'cause we're sort of taught like, you don't talk to God in a way that is disrespectful and he'll kill you.

So, how do you, you have to get that out. I'm assuming you have to talk with him. What does that look like for you?

So, I mean, I, I sometimes I just yell.

I'm just like, "What are you doing? Why is this taking so long? What do you want me to know? What's like that? What's the hold up? Where are you?" Yeah, those kinds of questions. I think he loves that stuff. I think he loves it. I, I love, it's my sense is like the woman with the issue of blood just came and grabbed him. I think he just, and the power goes out of him. Or when Jacob, I mean, Jacob wrestles. I think God's like, "Come get me. Come grab hold of me. Come ask me. Knock, seek, ask. Come ask me. Stop playing around. Come ask me. Let's go." Like, I think he wants that. I think he likes that. And, um, when we, when we come to him and really just grab hold of him and say, "Show us what to do here. We, we don't have anywhere else to go. You alone have the words of life. We're, we don't have anything else we can come up with. We need you to show up." Not for them to believe. So we believe.

So we believe.

Yeah.

That's how, yeah.

Before we get into the dangerous thing, 'cause now you opened up another question. Um, when, when you ask the question, "Why isn't this being taught prominently in America?" Like, let's just take the majority of, like, the pastor culture. Is, do you think that it's because they're afraid of not being grounded? Is it they're afraid of being sensational? 'Cause you've had experiences that are supernatural, but you're not like a sensationalist necessarily.

Um, so two questions. One, how have you remained grounded in the, the word? Because you do have a rule set, so to speak. And then two, do you think that the reason that people don't talk about this the way you talk about it is because there is it fear? The two questions.

I mean, my answer to every issue is fear. It's always fear and control. Fear and control. Um, even my mom, God bless her, she's with Jesus now, and all the Muslims that she shocked her up there with her, but, um, she, uh, she was always worried about me till the day she died that she, that I'd lost my way because I believed in listening prayer and hearing God. And she was always like, "That's a slippery slope. Hearing from God is a slippery slope." And I'm like, "Everyone in the Bible was on the same slippery slope. They were all slipping on that slope." Like, why? We got off it and we're just dead.

Yeah.

Right. And so that's it. It's the loss of control. It's, "How do you know it's God?" And then you can just do whatever you want. All of those dangers, and they are dangers of just playing fast and loose with, you know, God's voice and his will. But that's why we have the scriptures. That's why we have community. They're guardrails and they're boundaries. And the scriptures are clear about what does his voice sound like and what is the voice of the. We're much better at hearing Satan than we are God. Much quicker to agree with what Satan says than we are of God. Although so many times I'm in these prayer groups and study groups and I'll just say, "How long has Satan been running this group, just by the way they talk and what they say and what they pray?" It's like, "Who are you talking to? Like, who told, who said this stuff to you?"

Um, and like, why don't you let, why don't we, why don't you like, like this? You know, I've been in groups where people, they'll say, "Let's introduce ourselves to each other and let's be authentic and transparent," which to me is like, "Oh boy, here we go." The authentic and transparent introduction, which is basically every sin area you're involved in, right? And it's like, "I'm addicted to pornography and, uh, you know, and all this, and been divorced five times." And they just go around and, and, and like, I don't know anything about you. All I know is what Satan says about you. That's all you've all said. It's just what Satan says about you. Can we go around and introduce yourself the way Jesus would introduce you? And nobody knows how to do that. All we know how to do is call ourselves what the enemy calls us. We don't know how to say about ourselves what Jesus himself would say about you right now, standing with you right now. If he stood up and I said, "Introduce that person." What he would say about you would make you get on your knees and cry at his high view of you. And he would be appalled if you called yourselves the names we called ourselves. When a, when someone stands up in a church and goes, "Seven out of you 10 men are addicted to pornography." I'm like, "Satan's going to run the service." Because that's nothing but accusation. And God does not accuse people. He redeems people. He redeems people. He does, he's not the accuser. And when accusations are being thrown around in statistics and all that stuff, it just, it drives, it makes my heart break. 'Cause I already don't like myself. I don't need to come here, tithe, and then get accused again. Right? It's like, that's not the way out. The way out is, is I came that you might have life and heaven and abundance. And for you to begin to believe about yourself what I believe about you. That's what God wants for you. He wants you to believe about yourself what he believes about you. And it is hard to believe what he believes about you because we're so convinced that what the enemy says is right and true. So, yeah, I think it's fear. Because a population that can hear God, that that understand you have the mind of Christ and the spirit of the living God, you don't need someone telling you what to do. What you need is, "Do not neglect the gathering together of the saints to incite one another to love and good deeds." That's what we need. Get together, study the word, see what God's doing, talk about what he's doing in a way that just incites each other. Let's go out and live this. Let's go out and do this. Where? I'm sorry. I'm, go. Yeah. So, I want you to think about this. We've done this before at Pentecost. So, you're, you know, the 120 are up there in the room. And it's interesting. Did unity bring the spirit? Did the spirit bring unity? I don't know. That's an interesting question. But they're up there, they pray, the spirit falls. And when they go out, they equally disperse across the whole populations represented there. They equally, they all go to different groups, right? Why? When, when the spirit fills them, they go, the spirit in them directs them to a specific group of people, a focus group, we call it. And they, that group of people, they can speak the heart language of that group. They, they know how to do it. So, so that means that if the spirit fell on this room, so to speak, and we all stood up and said, "We're going to go to where the spirit put in my heart to go to that group," we would hit every single segment of this city all at the same time. Because God planted in each one of you the whole planet. And so when he says to the disciples, when Jesus says, "Disciples, as you're going into the world," there's no such thing as a Great Commission invented by a Lutheran pastor in the 1700s. It's a missions gimmick. It's not in the Bible. The Great Commandments in the Bible, we forgot that. But we have the Great Commission, which we came up with. This is what he says: "As you're going into the world, as all of you are going into the world, because all of you are going into the world, disciple the nations." If none of the disciples stop him and go, "Where should I go?" None of them do that. Why? They know where to go. How do they know? They know.

It's inside of you. Who are your people? Who are your people? Where's your place? You know, you may be afraid to go there, but you know, it's not, God's not making it a mystery. He wants you to know. And so, we did this in a group even this big, where we handed out 3x5 cards. We walked through identity process. Everyone, we worked through that process. Everyone wrote down the identity that God calls them. And then I asked them, in that identity, which vocation does that identity attract to? Which vocation? And then on the, on the, in the front of the building, we had on the seven spheres of influence in a city: government, education, entertainment, sports. And we asked the people, "Go put your name up on the section that God just called you." And that crowd equally disperses across all areas. That's Pentecost. That's Pentecost. Why aren't we doing that? Why aren't we being told how to do that? Why are we just gathering together in bigger and bigger numbers to listen to one person talk? Why aren't we sitting there and going, "What's in your heart? Let's go. Let's go." When we, when we were in Iraq, these two guys, the, a group called us and said, actually, they came through the military. It's like, "We got these two guys from China. They don't speak Arabic or English. They only speak Mandarin. I think there's a translator with them, but they're here to be missionaries to Iraq. They're pig farmers from China. They just arrived. Can you come help them?" So, I go meet these guys. They don't speak English, Arabic. They. And so, the, the translator, the American guy, he's translating. They're pig farmers. And he says, "A week ago, they were in a prayer meeting in their village in somewhere in China. They, they were praying about where to go in the world. And these guys felt like God's called them to Baghdad." Here they are, pig farmers. All they brought with them was each brought a pair of socks, a pair of underwear, and they had $2 between them. And they're like, "Let us loose in Iraq." And we're like, "What do you want to do?" And they said, "We want to open a Chinese restaurant." I'm like, "Okay, that's not going to fly in a Muslim country, but okay. And we want to raise the dead." That's what they came to do. Like, why, why aren't we like that? When those guys would sit in a room with us and we'd be talking, and they would, they'd be like this. And I said, "They're so jet-lagged. Let them go to sleep." And the guy said, "They're not jet-lagged. It's like, when they aren't participating, they're in prayer." Like, that's the level of people that we learned so much from those two guys. It's like, "Let's go. You can hear from God and let's go." So, um, I think, I think the more, if our people were more like that, who, who's going to be the celebrity that leads that? Like, who's going to build the empire church when your people are just going out like this all the time? And all you're doing is coming together and saying, "Do you know what God did? Do you know what we saw God do? Do you know what we see? Can God stop human trafficking?" Yes, he can. Can he stop it? Yes, he can. How do you know this team over here just ended it in that neighborhood? They ended it in that neighborhood. Can God stop crime? Can God get rid of crime? Yes, he can. How do we know? There's no crime in this neighborhood over here. Why isn't that what we're talking about? Why isn't that? Because we don't, we, we, we're not letting, we're not asking God, "What do you want us to know? And what do you want us to do?" And he's like, "Let's go." And if you ask him for wisdom about things, what's he going to say? "Know." Like, "Tell us how to do it, Lord, and we will go do it." That's what the Bible's all about. And I think, yeah, we're afraid. We're afraid. We're afraid our kids are going to grow up and be crazy like that. We dedicated them to the Lord so they don't ever have anything bad happen to them, right? And they don't have to go anywhere. Uh-oh. Yeah. Sorry, that was a cheap shot. I want to ask a question about environment real quick. I'm not really sure how to ask the question because I don't have enough experience to formulate it yet, but I'm curious how you view environment in a world where it's like,

Satan's running most of the stuff that we call Jesus stuff.

Yeah. I, so I think it's about identity. So, so if all of you have a unique identity, then that means your family has an identity, right? Your f, so this, this group of identities lives together as a family, then that family has an identity. It'd be interesting to figure that out. And, and a town can have an identity, and a city can have an identity, and a nation can have an identity. A, a nation without identity is just an empire. That's all it's doing is just building empire. And when the empire collapses, it can't reassemble because they don't have an identity. Um, and so neighborhoods like where we live, our community, our area, region has an identity. The, the Muslim world, to be blunt, has an identity of shame. They live in an identity of shame. I, I, I think probably Israel does as well. Israel, the name of the Holocaust Museum in Israel is Yad Vashem, a name and a place. Israel, when they went into exile, lost their name and their place twice. And they've always been in search of regaining a name and a place. And so, um, so, but the exile where the, where Israel loses their name and their place is right here first. Always right here, 'cause name and place is right here before it's ever on a piece of ground, which it never really ever is. It's always right here. And so when a person is in exile themselves, they've lost their name and their place, their identity and their purpose or their goal. Right? And so, so Israel, when they went into exile, they lost their name, their, their identity and their place. Their identity was to be a light to the nations in the world. All nations. And all nations were to be welcomed there to understand God. It was to be a place where all nations were assembling. That's why Jesus said when he turns the tables, "You've turned this, this house of prayer for all nations into a den of thieves." This is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, not one nation, all nations. And when you move away from that, you're moving out of your identity into exile. And you lose your place as well. And so communities, communities should have a sense of identity. If I asked you, "What's the identity of the United States of America?" What is it? It could have an identity. It should have an identity. It was formed on three biblical principles. It wasn't formed on Christianity. It was formed on three biblical principles as a liberal democracy. And the three principles were: no fear. Listen to this. The US was the first liberal democracy to really try and do this after the French Revolution. The, the, these are only found in the scriptures. A nation built on the principle of no fear. That means the government doesn't use fear to rule. And the people are not afraid of the government. No fear. That, that is that exhortation is only found in the Bible. No other, no other religion has the command of God to not be afraid. It's the number one exhortation in scripture. Do not fear. A nation built on fearlessness, not bravado, not manifest destiny. We're not afraid. We live without fear. We're not afraid of our government. Our government doesn't use fear and coercion to get us to do stuff. Second principle, Jesus is the paradigm for every citizen. Jesus is the paradigm for every citizen. Jesus is not a way to heaven when you die. He's not a means to an end. He is the paradigm for every human to live their life. No fear. Jesus is the paradigm. And the third principle that this nation was founded on was forgiveness is the law of the land. Can you imagine a country where fear is not what motivates what they do? That Jesus is the paradigm for every citizen and forgiveness is the rule of law? What that, that country would influence the entire world all the time. But look at us. Fear is only what we have. Jesus has long vanished as the paradigm for how we live our life. And forgiveness, we don't forgive. We don't forgive. And so we've, we've lost who we are. We've lost who we are. And we're reading it in the scriptures all the time, but we're skipping these parts. Jesus has the paradigm for how we should live. We, we can't build an empire with Jesus. Jesus, you need to go stand over there so we can do what we need to do. We'll, we'll welcome you back when we need a way to heaven. But right now, we need to do what an empire does and we can't have Jesus like that. Forgiveness. I'm sorry. Nope. Forgive us that we can't use forgiveness anymore because we're going to use power and fear to run this thing. And so places lose their identity. And humans do the same thing. It starts in us. It starts in us, right? We are afraid. We are going to use power and control and try and run our situations that we're that we're in. Jesus is not the model for how I live my life. I self-protect and self-promote. That's what we're taught. Self-protect and self-promote is the smartest thing you can do. It's adverse to Christ. And then forgiveness, justice, we use just, we're going to, we're going to exact justice on whoever hurt us and we're not going to forgive them. We're going to make them pay, like that. That starts inside of us. And this is when I'm in my darkness. This is what's ruling me. Constant fear, constant anxiety. And you lose track of your identity. And so geographic areas, when you move into them, that's like when we moved into a Palestinian community, they had a very distinct identity of secrecy and shame. That was the whole town's identity. I was curious what the identity of the US is right now. What is the identity? How does the rest of the world perceive us? What's the identity of the US? And so when we went into that town, the way you go after secrecy and shame is in the individual leadership of that place. And once those men started to transform and they went to the men and they came back, they changed everything in that community. They changed the name of the school to the Kingdom of God School. The Islamic school. They changed the name to the Kingdom of God School. And when they line up for the Islamic prayers, they came back in, took out the Islamic prayers, and the principal who was at the retreat would stand up in front of all the students and say, "Today, we're going to ask God a question, and we're going to listen to God all day long to answer the question, and when you learn to hear God speak, come to my office," which is why he also called the Kingdom of God. Um, you come to my office and you tell me what, what God says to you. And those kids would go, they couldn't wait. You didn't get sent to the principal's office. You went to the Kingdom of God to talk to the principal to tell him what God had said. And that school went from the lowest performing school in the West Bank to the number one school in the West Bank in 12 months with no money because they changed here. Do you see? Like, we've forgotten this stuff. And so when that school changed, the community changed, the parents changed, like, and that whole area became the identity that God had for it and alive, right? So just because there's a lot of people and a lot of stuff going on doesn't mean it's alive.

It's alive because the people are alive. We're alive.

Let's, let's talk about America for five minutes there. It doesn't seem to be going the right way.

Unless you disagree.

No, no, I agree. Yeah.

I'm seeing the church unite around a common enemy, which is seems to be Islam. Do you think this will work?

No. I mean, it's never worked. It's never worked. So think about, I mean, we've talked about this before. So there, there's in the history of the planet, we, you can come, we can talk about this if you want to debate this, but no peace conference has ever worked. No peace conference has ever worked. Never. Not one. They, they last for a little while, but the conflict comes back. It's just a matter of time. E, and wars never end. They stop for a while because one team's exhausted or mostly dead or they ran out of money, but it doesn't end. The conflict doesn't end. It continues. It'll revive. It'll come back, no matter what. No matter what. So, what we're doing, whatever it is humans are doing to end war and conflict doesn't work. But does nothing work then? What does work? What would work? What would bring peace? And so I think we, I don't think we even entertain that question anymore. I don't think we even wonder. It's more like, "How do we, how do we go into a situation and be the ones in charge and get out of that situation what we need and want?"

That, that's what we would call security to the advantage or disadvantage of the other group. It's just power brokering is all it is.

What advice would you give to pastors who are probably doing them for the right intentions? Uh, they're, they're talking about these things for the right intentions. They're interested in protecting their family. They're interested in protecting their culture, community, but all they talk about is the threat of, uh, Muslims or apostate spirit. All they talk about is how our way of life is being threatened, as if that's the gospel. But you never see Jesus responding to a way of life being threatened.

How would you counsel a pastor who is probably seeing this demonstrated for him? That's what I'm supposed to talk about. How do you ch, how do, what do they change?

Yeah. So again, I, I, I don't, to me, it always comes down to fear. So when you, so when a person says, "My way of life is being threatened," like, "What are you afraid of? Tell me what you're afraid of." Like, what does that mean? Your way of life is being threat, threatened. What's being threatened? Do you mean your actual physical life? Okay, that's, that's ultimately where we're going to get to is like, you're afraid to die. Okay, then say that. "I'm afraid to die." Then, if that's the case, what would be really great if, if the case is really, I'm just afraid to die, or I don't want my kids to die, or we're afraid to die because I don't know what does dying mean? You lost, like somebody lost. What does it mean you're going to die? So what would be really helpful is if we had a God that took away death. Oh, wait, there we go. So Hebrews says, "Jesus took away the power of death from the one who had the power of death, Satan." So he's, the power of death is not in the hands of the enemy anymore. And more than that, took away the burden of the fear of death. What hurts us is the fear of death. And the tyrant knows that you're afraid to die. And they use the fear of death, the fear of death of your company, the death of your bank account, the death of your, whatever. They, the enemy uses your fear of death to manipulate and control you all the time. And what's God going to do? Is God going to protect us? We really don't believe he will. So people say, "Well, what if we all, right, let's just lay down all the weapons in the United States? Let's put them all down. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? We're going to get overrun by China or Russia." Like, they're going to come get us and like, and then what? And then we're going to have meals on flights again. And I don't know if you've been through China lately, but like, they still have all that stuff going. But do you know the biggest, the fastest growing churches in the world? Do you know where they are? China and Iran.

Oh, wow.

Two of the places we're the most afraid of. And God's like, got a pretty good work going in both these places. How's it going in your country? Like, like, see, we're afraid. We don't even know what we're afraid of.

It's, it's the lies are so well laid out that we're afraid of stuff that we don't even know what it is. What are you afraid of? And so, so everything that we do turns into self-protection and self-promotion. That's all we know how to talk about. And our kids learn very quickly that that's the goal. And Jesus said, "He who seeks to save his own life," what does he say? "He who seeks to leave, who protect his own life, save his own life,"

Lose it.

This is a promise in the Bible. It's a promise in the Bible. Do you have that one on your refrigerator? He's saying if you go, if you go to live your life to protect your life, you will lose it because you are imprisoned the whole time in fear. And you can't be free to go, "Hey, let's go live over there," or "Let's go over there." You can't because you got to protect your own life. Because, because then it's like, "Well, what is God doing?" "Well, God protects those who protect themselves." Is that a, is that a verse? No. Where is that one? But what all that is is I just need to be in control. I just need to be in control because if I'm in control, I know how to protect my family. Do you? Because, because if, if God says, "Let me take that. Let me, you, God, make, make."

my kid into who? Make him into a man of God. Make him into a woman of God. Make make take them let him be."

And he goes like, "Then move them to Yemen right now." We're like, "Well, hold on. Oh, I thought you wanted me to You want me to make them into who they really are? Move them to Yemen." Well, we can't move to Yemen. Then don't ask me to make them who they should be. >> Don't play that game with me. But if but you don't know who this you don't understand who this is. I do. Raise them up to hear my voice. Raise them up to know their identity and let them go. Let them go. And you be the example to them. And don't teach them how to self-protect and self-promote and make fear-based decisions. Teach them how to make love-based decision in the truth of their own identity of who God is, who they are, and who their neighbor really is. And let them go. Tell them to take over the world. They will. They can. Do you see that?

That's what our country could be doing. I just said this one time in a coming into a peace negotiation with some this one group and this more the dominant group said, "What do you what he I was talking to him about there's a way we could have peace with these guys." And they're like, "No, you can't have peace with these animals. They're just going to fight all the time. They don't matter to the fight." And I'm like, "Well, we could have peace with them. We could. How? Let's do this. when they come into the room, instead of arguing with them, just start by doing this. Look at them and go, "Hey, what can we do to bless you?" Just start by that. Just say that to them. What can we do to bless you? Watch the conflict move away. Do you know what? And they said, "Forget it. We're not doing that." Why? Why not bless them? Why not? Why? Why? Because what are they going to do to us if we bless them? They're going to take everything we have. I'm like, ah, okay. So, we got Well, what's God going to do? We were We're in the We're ministers of reconciliation. We're here to bless the world. We're here to You can We have one of two options. We can bless or we can curse. As a nation, we can bless or we can curse. We can win or we can beat. Do you want to win people or beat people? Do we want to win the opposition or just beat them? That's what we have to decide. And we can do it. We could do it. We could have peace. We could have peace.

Is there time? Are there groups that you can't negotiate with negoti negotiate with and you have to um resort to restraint or force? Yes. Yes. But it is small. It's small. But yes, and that's okay. But that can't be the option every time you go to do something is let's just beat them like that. Yeah. I think >> you said that that group is small. Are Muslims part of that group? >> The the the part of the Muslim when people say to me the Muslims are trying to take over the world, I'm like all you have to do is walk in a mosque and ask them which country has the best tea and they'll argue and never unify. So I don't see them unifying and taking over the world. Honestly, it's so it's such a ridiculous thought to me that that could happen. So, we shouldn't be just fighting them as our exclusive mission >> in America. >> I think I just listened to the enemy talk. >> Yeah. >> Anyone that wants to talk to me about this, I'm happy to talk about this. I'm really kind of tired of hearing this routine. Um, >> sorry. >> Yeah. No, no, it's okay. No, no.

what we could do in any country in the world that the the person sitting across from me in any country in the world whatever their background Hindu seek Muslim atheist it doesn't matter that person is a human being who's operating in fear that's what they're doing and they're operating in a scarcity worldview so are we so you have two people two countries coming together that are worried about scarcity like there's not enough for our team and there's not enough for our team okay we're both going to come in we can't we've got to get something from the other. That's the beginning of the idea. Like you're going to take something from me. We have to protect ourselves from you taking it. Why are you here to take it? Cuz we don't have enough for our people or whatever. So that's how it begins. So you two have two leaders sitting down, both of them operating in scarcity, separation, and fear. What are they going to resolve? Nothing. They'll never resolve anything. Two leaders sitting down who like, you know what? We have enough. We have enough. We probably have more than enough. So we're here to bless you. We're here to connect with you. We're not here to separate with you. We're not here to isolate you. We're here to connect with you. And in connection, let's figure this thing out. You can figure out any problem. And any groups inside of that country that don't want to participate, well, we have another way to resort to, but it's minor and it's quick. So, yeah, that's what I believe. And and the only reason I'm saying that is because nobody's trying it. Nobody's trying it. You give me an example of countries that are trying actually to connect and reconcile and bless each other. You you show me mostly it's conflict and we're going to come take you. We're going to come get you.

Here's my last question for you. Take as long as you want. But I told this story before, but the first time that I used your material on a group of people under duress, by the way, against my will, was a business event. And I had just read your book and we had gone through some of your team and I felt the Holy Spirit say, "You're going to ask them to talk with Jesus." And I said, "No, I'm not Jamie. I'm I'm not going to do that." And I ended up doing it. And I knew the room. I knew who was in the room. I had relationships with these people. And I got to the front of the room and I said, "Who wants to talk to Jesus?" And everyone raised their hand. The the Hindus raised their hand and the Buddhists raised their hand. And there were some people that I was shocked by cuz they were atheists and they raised their hand, but they don't believe in God. So I don't know why they raised their hand. So I remember being in this like weird swirl. And then I took him through one of your prayers and everyone began to cry as they heard Jesus talk to them. And uh it that messed my theology up a lot. It made me wonder if I was maybe even a Christian. Like it's how's God? Why is God talking to a a Hindu faster than he talks to us at church? That doesn't seem like God, right? See, you can't hear from God if you don't believe it. I just I didn't know what to do. And I remember talking to you about this and you shared a story about a woman who wanted Jesus but she had a culture. She was like can I have Jesus and still have my >> Yeah. >> And at the time you said no. And so she's like well then I can't have Jesus. >> And the heartbreak that you and Donna experienced in that moment just not knowing a better way to do it. But in January you shared the story. story. You said, "Do you have any idea what happens when a Buddhist gets to Jesus and they worship the way that and then a Muslim and can you can you take us through this so that we can decompartmentalize? We expect that you know if you're going to be a Christian, you have to be like you have to be a Texan. You can't have any funny business." But you don't have that approach. you think you seem to think that Jesus is for whatever reason big enough to talk past people's uh cultural boundaries and I want you to explain why you believe that and then also share the cultural differences of how we're seeing people worship Jesus in different ways.

>> Yeah. So, well, I mean, so mainly just experientially, I've never I don't think I I know now I don't have to think. We've never been anywhere in the world. And I don't we've probably prayed with every group that I know of politically, every group. And I have never seen Jesus not talk to those people. It's like, can you read the Gospels and there's people that Jesus like, I'm sorry, I'm just can't comm I can't talk to them. And there's just no example. So why do we have groups that he can't talk to? Why where how did we come up with this? And so I I mean remember praying one time um I don't usually tell this but we were talk we had a bunch of high school kids public high school kids and we did a retreat with um for a city and so there was 500 kids from these public schools and they sat in groups. They just automatically sat in groups and you know there was the Muslim group and the homeschool kids that came. They sat in a group and the Christian kids and the gay kids and they all just sat in teams cuz that's how they're raised separate and in teams and you sit with your team. And so um and so we were walking through identity with them and saying that you know your identity is deeper than the little group you're sitting in. Like God doesn't call people by the names of these groups that you're in. That's never how he refers to humans. And so, so we're going to talk about what would he call you and how would you know that? And if if he did call you, these groups would end. These groups would be mixed together like that. And so I um so it was just in I I don't even want to get into but the kids that came to us first the kids that came to us first to want to know that were the kids with the greatest depth of lost identity obviously that were just like I'm lost. Number one um kids dealing with trans issues immediately came to us. They were the first to come. Do you know who were the last to come the most hesitant to come? the Christians, they were the most terrified by that whole idea. Why? Why? And so we're just talking about Jesus talking to you. And so I was with this one kid, trans kid, and I've I I've never that was the first time I prayed with someone where I became afraid myself in the middle of the process because it was like he and I were standing over an abyss with nothing there. Nothing. Even the kids in other groups had like a foothold of an identity in their mind. This was nothing. It was an abyss. And both and I and he was sinking down in it while we were praying. And I was trying to hold him and I was going down in it with him. And I had to break it off. I had to stop. And so I so I I just said to him, I listen, I'm gonna I'm just gonna keep working with you and I'm going to keep meeting with you because this is so this is not right and I I I don't I don't know exactly what to do with you and how to pray with you, but I'm going to stay with you. And so over three years, I would meet with him. and he was in all all kinds of trouble and I wasn't allowed to meet alone with him cuz there had to be a guardian or someone with and I remember one day after 3 years and he all he was waiting for was 18 to get the surgery you know do that and I just kept saying to him I like okay 18's coming so I met him when he was like 15 or 16 so praying with him and one time we were together and I and it was just so it was so dark and I was just like Jesus where are are you? Where are you? I know you love this kid. Where are you? And we were praying together and and again the guy the kid would just stay with me. He just was so desperate. And we're together and he he's it was like this one time. It's like this light shone down into the abyss and he took hold of the light and it pulled him up and he got on this like ledge and he walked around and he and there was a wall and he looked around the wall and we were sitting in a hotel lobby cuz we had to meet in public and he loo he was like look there was like a wall there and he looked around the wall and he said, "Oh my gosh, Jesus is right around here. He's right around this wall." And and I I'm like, "Okay, what do you want to go to him?" And he goes like, I I do, but I'm afraid of him. Why? Because I'm afraid he's going to make me into something I don't want to be. Do you know how many people are afraid that Jesus is going to make you into something you don't want to be? >> Mhm. >> Most of us. When he said that, I know here we go. This is it. He's going, this is going to happen. And so I said I said, "What's Lord? What's the wall?" And it had something to do with his abuse and his mom and stuff like that. Was the wall that kept him from seeing? He just couldn't see Jesus, but he could look around the wall after these many times being together and he could see Jesus over there. And I said, "Can we walk around the wall to can me and you walk around the wall together and just go to him? Can we do that together?" Here's my question. Where is this kid going to do this with somebody? Where are the believers that are going to do this with him? Versus like, "You're crazy. This we got to, you know, make this illegal or whatever all that stuff is." Like that's a kid. that's a person. He's not a thing in a group and a team. And so he so he said, "Okay." I I said, "I'll hold your hand. Let's walk around the wall together." And so we did it. We walked around the wall and and Jesus was sitting there and Jesus kept saying, "Just come here. Come to me. Come here. Come over here to me." Because he wanted the kid to come to him and come unto me all you who are heavy burden. Come to me and I will give you rest. Rest for your soul. Come to him. I said, "Go to him. Go to him. Just go to him." This is the beauty of community. And so he goes and he sits with Jesus. And Jesus says, "I'm not going to make you into what you don't want to be. I'm going to walk you into who you've always been, who you've always been, and you're going to love it." And that moment was the time he decided not to do any kind of surgery to himself. And and so we did went through this very beautiful process together sitting in the hotel lobby then because he he was under all kinds of restrictions because there was a criminal case that he was not involved in directly but a victim of. And so then he had to leave. The next time I saw him was two years later and I was speaking at a Christmas event up in DC and I looked out into the crowd and I saw him in the back and he just waved to me and I didn't even recognize him and that was so beautiful. It was so so beautiful to me. And so what group can God not go into? What what group can can stop the love of God, the God that made them, that created them? And so with Muslims, with with atheists, with praying with weaguer Muslims who Jesus would appear to immediately while we were praying with them and walk them into the kingdom and all those groups. And so then I have a friend who's out in California and he has a house church and in the house church are Buddhist followers of Jesus, Hindu followers of Jesus, Muslim followers Jesus, Christian followers of Jesus. There are those and um and secular people that have they're all followers of Jesus. So what unites them is not that they're all evangelicals. What unites them is Christ. And so the so when they when they go, "Okay, let's spend some time to pray prayer together." The Muslims go wash their hands and lay out their rugs and face Mecca and they and they're and they kneel down and they're ready to pray because to them God is high and lifted up and holy. Isaiah chapter 6. He's so holy and you're don't talk to him unless you're on your face and you've washed your hands and your mouth and you get on your face and you touch your face to the ground in the presence of the holy God. That's their view. One time one of my mus when we were praying with a Muslim, I said, ' Do you want to hear God speak to you? And he said, 'I do.' And I said, 'Well, let's pray.' And he went to the bathroom and washed his hands and came out. And he goes, "What are you to me? What are you doing?" And I'm like, "What do you mean?" He goes, "Did you say God's going to come speak to us?" And I said, "I did." And he said, "And you're just going to sit there like that?" He goes, "In the Bible, don't they get on their knees and like fall down?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I was going to get on my knees. Just get you do it first." Anyway, so he got down on his knees and like do you know how ridiculous like dear Lord that looks to a Muslim? Like you're talking to God I am that I am like that. And so when he's when the Muslims get down on their face, it's very beautiful. But they're they're kneeling in honor of Christ. That's what they're doing. It's Christ doesn't take away the holiness of God to them. And so they get on their knees and the Hindu break out. They have these beautiful, they call them chaong, these beautiful flower arrangement they've made and they set them out and they burn incense. The Hindu believers, you know why? Cuz they're they're a beautiful fragrance unto Christ. You know that verse and the incense unto God. And so now when they burn the incense and they have the beautiful flowers, they're honoring Christ. They don't need any other gods and they don't need any of that. It's Christ. But who made those flowers that they love? He did. What's the incense represent? Our praise going up to him. And so the Muslims are down next to him, face down, and the and the Hindu are there sitting with the incense and they're they're praising Christ above all other gods like that. And the Buddhists are are doing this like bell with with worshiping Jesus and they're making this beautiful chime and they're chanting the name of Christ, Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on us sinners. And they're doing this beautiful chanting like this, just all like that. And then the the Christians are over there, you know, with a cup of coffee. Our view of Jesus is that he's our absolute best friend. He's our best friend and we love him and we're so personal and cozy with God. Like, and so we're relaxed in his presence. And the Muslims are like, "We wish we knew God like you did at that relaxed way. And we wish we revered him like you did. And we wished we loved creation like you guys do. And we wished we understand what real contemplation is like you guys do. But alto together alto together you have the whole body of Christ worshiping him in every right way. And at the center of the circle is Christ lifted up. This is the kingdom of God.

>> So get him to Jesus. take them to Jesus however they are and let him redeem in their culture what he loves and not sacrifice it because some person told them you can't do it that way you have to do it my way not true not true and in this way honestly it's the most beautiful peaceful thing you've ever seen is to watch people of all different backgrounds we sing about it we talk about it but we never really do it. Yes. From above. That was an angel. Yes. Thank you very much. So I I mean that's our goal, right? Is you Someone asked me the other day, is is Iran beyond redemption? It's like not if we go there and tell them. Not if we go there and win them. Yeah. No. >> Amazing. Thank you. >> My pleasure. >> All right, we'll see you guys next week. >> Thank you.